| Office Location: | 306 Soc/Psych, Durham, NC 27708 |
| Office Phone: | (919) 660-5750 |
| Email Address: | |
| Web Page: | https://sites.duke.edu/leary/ |
| Ph.D. | University of Florida | 1980 |
| M.A. | University of Florida | 1978 |
| B.A. | West Virginia Wesleyan College | 1976 |
At the most general level, my interests are in social and personality psychology, centering around topics involving self-awareness, interpersonal motivation and emotion, and interfaces of social and clinical psychology. I have been particularly interested in how people's behavior and emotion are affected by (a) their concerns about others' impressions, evaluations, and acceptance of them and (b) the ways in which they talk to themselves in their own minds. In the first vein, we have been investigating the fundamental human need for acceptance and belonging, how people go about seeking acceptance, and the emotional and interpersonal consequences of feeling inadequately accepted. In the second vein, we are studying the negative effects of excessive ego-involvement on emotion, performance, and interpersonal behavior, and the efficacy of hypo-egoic states in which people's egos exert minimal influence on their thoughts, feelings, and behavior.